JimWorld Gazette Issue #101 09/23/2000

JimWorld Gazette - Issue #101 - September 23, 2000

CONTENTS

• From Our Sponsor - WebTechniques.com
  
• New Link Formatting Test
  
• Award Design Contest Goes Into Overtime Innings
  
• From Our Sponsor - pogo.com
  
• X Marks The Spot. Mac Addicts Rejoice
  
• From Our Sponsor - Recommend-it
  
• Software Review - Lyris
  
• Must-Do Things Before Becoming A Webmaster
  
• From Newbie To E-Merchant - 4Free
  
• Snippets

Link to this issue of the Gazette as http://gazetteworld.com/go/to.cgi?l=g101

This day can't go by without taking notice of the gathering of 10,000 of the world's best in Sydney. The athletes in Sydney, and the thousands of other competitors who tried so hard to be there, are winners, each and every one. Congratulations to you all.

To our Aussie subscribers: you have done yourself proud. Sydney will be remembered as an example of excellence.


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NEW LINK FORMATTING TEST

I have spent the last week testing ways to better serve our America Online Gazeteers.

The problem is that AOL, alone as far as I can tell, does not recognize links in email messages in the same way as the rest of the world. In order for the AOL email client to see something as a clickable link, the link must be wrapped in HTML code.

So this week we begin presenting links within the Gazette in two different forms. One link as we always have without HTML code, followed immediately by the AOL version of the link.

I've played with 23 email client programs and free email services this week and have not discovered any programs that will react badly to this technique, but life being what it is....

Please let me know if your email program has a problem with the new formatting. Include the name and version of your email software plus Windows/Mac info.

If no problems arise, this will become the standard linking presentation for the future in the Gazette. We have thousands of AOL subscribers and it is my hope that this better serves them.

If you are using Lyris software to drive your mailing list, you will want to read about the changes you can make to your list's header and footer configuration to make yours more friendly to AOL subscribers. I would include them here, but my Lyris server would just convert them when it mails this issue. Catch 22?

http://jimworld.com/aol.txt

Hmmmm. Maybe if AOL bought out an Internet company, like a browser developer, they could figure out how to stay in step with the rest of the world. Oh. That's right. They did. I guess all that is left is for thousands of other companies to convert to doing it AOL's way.


AWARD DESIGN CONTEST GOES INTO OVERTIME INNINGS

I've had several requests to allow a little more time for entries in the contest to redesign the JimWorld Way Cool Hot Site Award. We've received several hundred entries but there's always room for more.

The contest deadline will be extended to midnight on October 10th.

The prizes for the winning design will be:

• Permanent credit on the Way Cool Hot Site winner's pages and submission form.
  
• Recognition in the Gazette for the winner and top 5 finalists.
  
• 50,000 banner impressions on the JimWorld web sites. A US $1,250 value.

The rules are simple.

Create an award graphic that is fast loading and small enough to be displayed on any web site's home page or awards page. You can view the current award graphic at http://jimworld.com/hotpg.html

The award graphic should reference the JimWorld Way Cool Hot Site Award instead of the current SmartDesk reference.

I will select the top finalists and the Get High Forums and Search Engine Forums moderators will select the winner.

I am currently setting up a new database driven award management system to allow us to evaluate more submissions and recognize a new award-winning site each week.

Submit your entry via email before midnight California time on October 10th.

Send Entry To Jim

That's it. Now get to work!


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X MARKS THE SPOT. MAC ADDICTS REJOICE

Over the past few years it has really been hard to be a loyal Mac fanatic. Year after year watching Windows adopt every good feature of the Mac OS and invent a few new ones.

Now it appears that at long last I can put my doorstop back on top of the desk and plug it in. The new generation of Mac operating system has arrived (in Public Beta) and the early reports coming in are very encouraging.

If you have a current enough Mac processor, grab a copy of Mac OS X and take it for a drive. The public Beta can be ordered on the Apple web site for $29.95.

Yes, I know. Beta software for hard cash? Bummer.

Mac OS X


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SOFTWARE REVIEW - LYRIS

Lyris List Manager

All of you Charter Gazeteers will recognize this entire story.

When the Gazette premiered on April 25, 1997 it was meant to only last for a couple of months to allow me to write a tutorial describing the best ways to manage the publication of an ezine. Somehow I never got around to writing the tutorial because the Gazette just kept growing to rapidly.

The first issue was sent to 245 subscribers using my dial-up connection and Eudora. Considering the state of the Net back then, that was not an unusual way to handle ezines.

The second issue went out to 575 subscribers and the manual mailing through Eudora started to strain my patience. I started looking for a better answer. By the fourth issue we had passed the 1,000-subscriber mark and I was getting desperate. Mailing the Gazette was consuming the better part of two days.

Luck came to my rescue in the form of a powerful desktop program that managed the mailing list database, tracked bad addresses, new subscribers and changes. It also sent the Gazette ad out unattended by me over my newly acquired cable modem. Life was good.

A few issues later life was not so good. By the time we reached 5,000 subscribers the Gazette was back up to requiring over 24 hours just to mail from my desktop machine. By the time I had reached two full days of mailing I was in trouble.

I tested two of the online software offerings available at that time. Majordomo was the most easily used but lacked any type of user interface for the subscribers or the list manager. It blew up almost daily.

That was when I discovered Revnet and their list management software. I switched to their hosted service and life once again became bearable. The software ran beautifully and the Gazette list continued to grow.

The one major flaw on the Revnet system became painfully obvious as we continued to grow. Their software could not include the subscriber's actual email address in the mailing. It showed that the recipient was the list and not an individual. This caused countless problems when subscribers wanted to unsubscribe or change their email address. If they subscribed under an address that was forwarded to another address, they didn't know which address was the registered one in the list.

Many users of Revnet's software moved to other systems because of this hole in the software. I moved on as well. The inability to handle subscriber requests was a near-terminal situation.

As luck would have it, another answer was available in the form of the Lyris List Manager. First I moved to their hosted service to make sure that it was the final answer I needed.

It was.

Now that we are sending out over 250,000 copies of each issue, efficiency and flexibility are major concerns. These are the areas in which Lyris shines.

The system is based on an industry standard database system, so users are able to write their own specialized programs to extend the capabilities of Lyris. Many of those customized extensions wind up in the sharing library on the Lyris site available for download.

The system correctly handles subscriber's email addresses as you can tell from the headers at the top and bottom of the Gazette. Subscribers can visit my Lyris server with their browser to make whatever changes they need, or can send unsubscribe messages via email. With this week's changes to better serve AOL users, I expect my manual list work to drop to near zero.

Lyris List Manager automatically handles invalid email addresses and other problems normally associated with major email campaigns. You'll never see "error mail" again with List Manager -- unless you really want to.

With its built-in mail engine, Lyris List Manager can deliver mail at speeds of up to 500,000 unique messages per hour, depending on your hardware. The Gazette requires a bit more time, as it tends to be somewhat longer than most email messages. Or hadn't you noticed?

The interface for the list manager is simple to use and powerful. Managing subscriber lists and message content is the easiest I have seen anywhere. The only feature I find lacking is in searching the subscriber lists. Lyris does not have a wildcard search feature, so finding all subscribers in a specific domain name is not possible. Hopefully this feature will find its way into the next release.

The List Manager is available for several operating systems. The Gazette runs on a Windows NT box using the Apache server. The speed is only limited by the lack of scalability of NT servers. However, the new Unix List Manager is allowing that limitation to be sidestepped. I will be installing the Unix version soon to update this review.

Pricing of the List Manager is dependant upon the size of your mailing list or discussion list (it handles both) and can range from free to a high of US$30,000.

At the entry end, you can install List Manager and use it free to manage up to 50 lists with a maximum of 200 subscribers in each list.

$500 gets you an unlimited number of lists with 500 members maximum per list .

For $1,500 you get an unlimited number of lists with 2,000 members maximum per list.

The top end for most needs is the $7,500 version, which allows unlimited number of lists and unlimited subscribers in each list. This is the version driving the Gazette.

For $995 you can purchase their Billing & Reporting Module, allowing you to offer list hosting to your customers without biting off a huge administrative workload. I'll review that separately for you in the near future.

An ODBC Driver is available for $995.

An upgrade is available for all version to allow users to access you list through their news reader instead of through email or browser. All version include searchable archives of past messages.

The ability to upgrade the capabilities and cost of using List Manager is one of its most attractive features. There are no giant steps in price, allowing the user to generate the growth required to take the next step up in service. At each step, you are credited with 50% of the cost of your current license towards the cost of the new version.

Another indication of their attention to the needs of their customers is their policy of allowing license holders to switch between operating systems as often as necessary without any additional cost.

Over all, I must give Lyris my highest praise for their technical skills, business acumen and responsive customer service. Lyris is one of the new bread of e-companies with a firm grip on the real world of business.

Of course, I still want that wild card search.


MUST-DO THINGS BEFORE BECOMING A WEBMASTER

(While reviewing the early issues of the Gazette for the above article, I expected to do a lot of cringing to see how things have changed and made those early ideas and tips obsolete. Oddly enough, things haven't changed that much. Good marketing techniques are still good marketing techniques. And being a Webmaster is just as complex as ever. I thought you might enjoy this still relevant article from issue #3.)
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Before you start to build your first web site, there are a few things that you really should do. Here is the short list that I advise. This list is loosely based on the "Becoming A Vampire The Easy Way Handbook" widely distributed in the last century.

• Get a portrait made of yourself. This will serve to remind your family of who you were before you began to transform into that which you will soon become.
  
• Install a CU-See-Me (Webcam) enabled computer at the dining room table. This will enable you to attend family dinners by video conference.
  
• Prepare a list for each child to explain why you no longer attend ball games, Scout meetings, school functions and the like. Do not bother making one for your spouse. He or she will come up with their own, and you really don't want to know what they are.
  
• Create some pithy answers to several questions you will be expected to respond to online, such as:
  What are you doing still up?
  Don't you have a life?
  Does your family let you get away with this?
  
• Learn to say 'Honey, I am almost done with this. If I can just stay focused for a few more days, I'll return to normal. I promise.' without blushing or looking away.
  
• Stock up on libido reducing potions.
  
• Keep a diary of what you used to do pre-web. It is important to have a roadmap to help you find your way back.
  
• Learn to grovel and beg, so that you will be able to ask online people for help with the little problems that come up.

OK, now let's get back to work.


FROM NEWBIE TO eMERCHANT - 4FREE

A common theme in my inbound email is:

"I've tried everything and spent tons of money and still don't have a working e-commerce web site and no money coming in! Why is this $#%@# so tough?"

Getting an e-commerce web site up and running can be near-to-impossible if you insist on doing everything yourself. You know: The macho approach to web building. Trust me, there are easier ways.

I've been watching a lot of the press releases and advertisements going by in the past few weeks and a pattern started to emerge. Not only can you build an online business the easy way, but you can build it all for free in about a day.

I hear a chorus of "Impossible!" coming at me. So here we go. A complete e-commerce business up and running in a day. I know it can be done because I did it just to make sure.

>> Step 1: BizLand Free Hosting

The first thing you will need is a home for your primary web site. While there are tons of places to get free hosting, I like BizLand for a couple of reasons.

First, they offer a reliable and fast service with traffic stats, email accounts, 35 MB of storage and an extensive resource of tools and information to help you learn and grow. When you start seeing some revenue coming in you can upgrade to the paid service for only $15 per month which eliminates the banner on your pages.

Their site building system is first rate and easily used to build your site, or you can FTP your own site content onto you server. Very nice feature.

I like their approach to offering a complete community of content to make your learning process easier.

They were also smart enough to advertise in the Gazette. Just goes to prove how tuned-in they are.

>> Step 2: Free Site Templates

Assuming that you want a look for your site not offered above, download any one of the 75 completely free designs offered at our Free Site Templates site. Every day several hundred people are starting their sites with this simple process.


>> Step 3: Free Merchant

The next step in your day of business building is to acquire a shopping cart system for your site.

There are lots of places to buy shopping cart systems or even download them for free and install them on your own server. For our purposes, both are too slow. We want to start selling stuff, not hiring a programmer to install software.

FreeMerchant fits the bill. It's a fully hosted shopping cart service that allows you to build a simple or complex shopping catalog using your browser. The shopping site is easily built and you can just link to it from your BizLand web site.

Here's just some of what you get from Free Merchant:

- Internet Store Hosting
- Secure Shopping Cart
- Internet Store Builder
- Unlimited Store Catalog Size
- Traffic Logs
- eMail Account
- Merchant to Merchant Banner Exchange
- Shipping Calculator
- Tax Calculator
- Coupon Creator
- Discounted Corporate Services & Offers
- Technical Support

Don't believe it's free? FreeMerchant has no billing department.

You have to experience this service to appreciate it fully. My description falls far short of how good their offering really is.

>> Step 4: ProPay Free Merchant Account

Normally one of the most frustrating, expensive and time consuming tasks in building an e-commerce business is finding someone to give you a credit card merchant account. In order to accept credit cards, you must have a merchant account, normally with a bank. It takes from weeks to months and costs from hundreds to thousands of dollars. This step blocks a large percentage of people that want to start an e-business.

How did I get through this step in my one day plan?

Simple. I applied for a free merchant account at ProPay and was approved the same day. Thought you had me on this step, didn't you?

The account allows me to charge people's credit cards while online or in-person. My company name appears on their credit card statement instead of some clearinghouse name. I can sell from my web site or participate in auctions over at e-bay or anywhere else that looks like a viable place to sell. I can even take orders over the phone.

There is no charge to set up the account and the fees are reasonable. 3.5% of total sales, plus $.35 per transaction. This is higher than you would pay if you set up a direct bank merchant account, but remember that the fee is still very reasonable and you have to up-front costs.

You are limited to a total of $1,000.00 per month in total sales and the highest amount per individual sale is $250. Your money is in your bank account in 48 hours from the time of the sale.

If you need to process more than their standard Commerce Account allows, you can increase your limits by prefunding your account. Using the Add Cash service, you can prefund your account with $250 and increase your limits to $2,000 in monthly transactions and $300 per single transactions. Or, you can prefund with $500 and increase your limits to $3,000 in monthly transactions and $500 per single transactions.

There are no long forms to fill out to get your account. Even if all you want to do is to take credit cards at your next Garage Sale, this is a great way to go.

>> Step 5: Free Site Stuff

Now let's head back to your main web site at BizLand and add some cool sticky stuff to your main web pages. Free Site Stuff offers just that: free site stuff.

All of their "stuff" is free and hosted on their servers. Just sign up and copy the HTML code into your page's code. Takes a few minutes and you'll have return traffic building "stuff" looking like your site has been worked on for months.

Some of the free "stuff" is:
- Web site directory and search engine
- Free personal ads
- Visitor polls and surveys
- Discussion forums
- Guestbook
- e-cards
- Games

Even if you add all of them, you'll still be on time for dinner with the family.


>> Step 6: JimTools

Finally, let's head over to JimTools and use all of the free tools there to check our site's spelling, validate all of the links, research and install Meta Tags for our pages, submit the new site to all of the search engines and lots of directories. After all, we are now ready to welcome our visitors and we need some of them.

By the end of the day I had created a nice looking web site with a snazzy looking online catalog and accepting credit cards on a secure server and announced it to the world. Plus my site had all of the features that make a web site feel welcoming to the visitors and giving them confidence to buy online.

Now I expect to hear no more whining about the high cost, long timeline and massive efforts to get a business online.

I also expect to win the Lottery. I figure I have about the same odds in either case.


SNIPPETS

Internet Marketing Strategy Day Conference

October 26 and 27, 2000 will see the second gathering of webmasters and site promoters, and the list of speakers has grown. The conference has also grown to two full days.

If you are planning to attend this conference in Stockholm, bring a few problems with you and take advantage of the second day's small group workshops to get some excellent advise on resolving the problems.

I look forward to seeing you there. I'm already working on my presentation and should be able to squeeze in a lot of good tips.

----------

Receive A Dollar For Every Download

CoPort Technologies, Inc. has developed a Carebar Affiliate Program (CAP) for webmasters that will allow you to:

- Earn $1 for every unique user download
- Support your favorite charity

Carebar is an Internet resource bar that resides at the bottom of a user's computer screen and contains useful services and a comprehensive search engine. CAP allows web publishers to place a link on their site to the Carebar download page of your favorite nonprofit organization. CoPort will pay you $1 for every unique user that downloads Carebar in appreciation for your marketing assistance. Over 400 nonprofit have received funds generated from Carebar this month.

Many sites that don't want to actively advertise on their sites will enjoy this program. It allows you to use the Net at its best in support of charities, and gain reputation among their site's visitors. Sounds like everybody wins, including the webmaster who gets a buck for every referral.

I'm going to participate to see if we can raise some money for the Boy Scouts. If you just want to help out your favorite charity but not get involved in the affiliate program, go download the Carebar shown for your favorite charity and use it. The Carebar is handy and the non-profits can sure use the money.

For more information and application for the CAP program go to Carebar

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Too busy running your own business and corporate web site to even think about building a user e-community?

Maybe you're going about it all wrong.

Maybe, instead of trying to keep everything in-house and under your own control, you should throw some support behind someone that is already trying to build an e-community about your company and/or products. They will work harder than you could pay any employee to work and will accomplish more without the usual restraints placed on employees.

While it's true that this method means you will not have absolute control over the e-community, but is that necessarily a bad thing?

The person or team that you select to receive your backing will need excellent access to your company and its employees. You want them to be able to research issues raised by their community members. Let them in on your R&D efforts. Let them break new announcements. Nothing builds community loyalty faster then "insider information."

They could also use a few bucks of advertising income. Help them find advertisers that would benefit from exposure on the site. Maybe companies that produce add-on products or services to enhance your product? Or some of your suppliers? How about your own advertising department?

Leave them independent but supply them with all the support they need. You'll win big in the long run.

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SafeMessage

Looking for some confidence that your email remains private? Email privacy isn't just an issue for spies and bank robbers.

Sensitive business planning is now the most valuable asset on the planet, and ensuring that you can move information around the world without it leaking to the competition is a priority, as is a certain amount of paranoia about Big Brother reading your message at will.

SafeMessage is poised to offer the first significant tool to combat against those that would snoop on you. SafeMessage will be a peer-to-peer, heavily encrypted email system that will not require your email messages to be passed through ISP's email servers. That means it will not leave copies of your messages on computers between you and the recipient of the message.

Other features will stop recipients from forwarding messages, printing, or cutting and pasting message content and allows a message to be sent with a date on which all traces of the message are to be eliminated from the recipient's computer.

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Yahoo to offer encrypted email option
Yahoo Encrypted Email

Yahoo plans to let its email account holders use data scrambling to protect the privacy of their messages, marking a potentially significant advance for the mainstream use of encryption.

The Web portal and ZixIt, an encryption company based in Dallas, confirmed that they have inked an agreement to provide encryption to Yahoo Mail users but declined to comment further.

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First Palm Virus Spreads, Killing Programs
Palm Virus Article

If you own a handheld computer (PDA) running the Palm operating system, it is time to protect yourself. The first real virus has appeared and is destined to spread among all of the social misfits (otherwise known as Hackers) who have too much time on their hands and little motivation to do anything meaningful.

Your best defense is to frequently back up you entire Palm device to your desktop computer through you docking port. Back up both the applications and the data files. Most backup programs only back up the data and do not protect the programs.

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Digital Video And Web Video Expo
Digital Video Expo

This Wednesday I will be at the Digital Video Expo and Web Video Expo in Long Beach, California. It looks to be an important event considering the growing bandwidth available to Net users. Running dates are September 2 through September 6, 2000.

If you plan to be there, drop me a line and we'll have a coffee break together.